August 1, 2007
Linn Miller in her Belonging to Country — A Philosophical Anthropology says that 'belonging' has become an increasingly prominent term in academic and broader discussions about Australian national identity. Indeed, the question of who properly belongs to this country — Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal — is a highly politicised and contested national issue. Despite this:
there is very little attention paid to explicating or theorising the concept itself. One aim of this paper is to address this lack; however, a stronger focus is placed upon the belonging of Australia's non-Indigenous population — specifically, settler Australians. How legitimate are settler claims to belonging to this land? How accurate are those protagonists — both Indigenous and non-Indigenous — who deny the very possibility of such belonging?
\Her approach is to argue that belonging is some kind of relation; obviously not just a relation of any kind; rather a relation to something. What kind of relation?
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